Where Do Nonprofit and Civil Society Researchers Publish? Perceptions of Nonprofit Journal Quality

Authors

  • Marlene Walk Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental AffairsIndiana University Purdue University Indianapolis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1396-9481
  • Fredrik O. Andersson Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental AffairsIndiana University Purdue University Indianapolis

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20899/jpna.6.1.79-95

Keywords:

Journal Quality, Nonprofit and Civil Society, Perceptions, Stated Preference Ranking

Abstract

The field of nonprofit and civil society studies has grown tremendously in the past few decades, and scholarly journals have played a central role in this growth by facilitating circulation of research in the academic community. To date, only three nonprofit journals are indexed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and, as such, have an impact factor. There are, however, far more journals serving the nonprofit and civil society academic community. Thus, focusing solely on impact factors is not necessarily suitable for creating rankings or assessing journal quality in this field. Indeed, doing so fails to capture most scholarly publication outlets that focus on nonprofits and civil society. Seeking to overcome shortcomings of relying merely on impact factors, this exploratory study uses survey data collected from nonprofit and civil society researchers in the United States and Europe to provide insight into which journals they perceive to be quality outlets for nonprofit and civil society scholars. Our findings reveal that, while the impact factor can be one indicator of journal quality, newer outlets without an impact factor are also perceived to be viable outlets for publication by scholars in the field.

Author Biographies

  • Marlene Walk, Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental AffairsIndiana University Purdue University Indianapolis

    Marlene Walk is an Assistant Professor in the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI. Her research interests relate to human resource management, volunteering and volunteer management as well as the impact of organizational change on employees. Marlene received her Ph.D. from the School of Social Policy and Practice (SP2) at the University of Pennsylvania.

  • Fredrik O. Andersson, Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental AffairsIndiana University Purdue University Indianapolis

    Fredrik O. Andersson is an Assistant Professor in the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI. He is a research fellow with the Stockholm Center for Civil Society Studies at the Stockholm School of Economics. His research sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship and nonprofit organization studies. His main scholarly interests include new nonprofit emergence, nonprofit organizational growth, and nonprofit governance.

Downloads

Published

2020-04-01

Issue

Section

Research Articles

Similar Articles

11-20 of 189

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.